A system bus may permit transfer of data across the system bus so long as the data being transferred is an integer multiple of a width of the system bus. For example, if the system bus is 32 bits wide, data being transferred across the system bus may need to be 32 bits wide, 64 bits wide, 96 bits wide, etc. (or 1× the system bus width, 2× the system bus width, 3× the system bus width). If data is not an integral multiple of the system bus width, additional bits may need to be added to the data prior to communication across the system bus so that the transfer is an integer multiple of the system bus width.
This may increase the amount of time required to transfer the data across the system bus. Furthermore, additional processing power may be required to add bits to the data, and to remove the bits when data is transferred across the system bus. Even when the data is transferred across the system bus, a controller may not be able to access the data at a non-aligned system bus address.